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5 LAPD officers down: Colleagues struggle to cope

Sgt. Rosie Mejia of the LAPD's Hollywood Division prepares to go out on a patrol shift on Monday, May 12. Mejia is from the same division as officer Nicholas Lee, who was killed when his patrol car collided with a commercial vehicle on March 7.

A funeral Wednesday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels remembers officer Robert Sanchez, the third LAPD officer to die in a car crash this year. Authorities allege Sanchez was killed May 3 when an SUV crashed into his patrol car in Harbor City; police say the SUV was driven by someone trying to help a friend the police were following.

Mejia, 37, is reserved and professional. She talks quietly and listens to the police radio closely. Her focus is on traffic while she steers her patrol car. Hurried drivers zoom past idling buses, but she waits before carefully making a left turn. Part of that vigilance comes from the front office, Mejia said.

“Making sure everybody wears their seatbelt,” she said. “It's kind of been brought up a lot more."

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reports that, last year, 43 officers died in a car or motorcycle crash or when struck by a vehicle, compared to 31 officers who were fatally shot.

Still, the fact that four LAPD officers have died in car crashes recently — two of them on the same stretch of road — can be hard to digest. L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck said he was in “disbelief” when he got the call about last Friday’s fatal crash.

“I asked. I called back. I drove out here myself, and I still didn’t believe it,” Beck said last Friday. “It is just too horrific for words.”

Across town, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, officer Drake Madison directs news reporters, volunteers and police staff as he sets up another traditional law enforcement funeral for officer Sanchez.

"Seems like we're going from one funeral to another,” he said. Madison's organized four so far.

LAPD funerals are impressive. The cathedral seats 3,500 people, and hundreds of extra chairs had to set up outside to accommodate people paying their respects. Officers in crisp blue uniforms stand stoically in rows as the procession snakes through city streets.

Madison said he's become too familiar with the routine. “A funeral is a funeral,” he said, shaking his head. “You know, one at a time. And we move forward.”

That's how Mejia tries to look at it. "Anything can happen anywhere, and if it's your time, then it's your time,” she said.

Her patrol shift ends, and she rolls back into the station parking lot and parks her car, passing a flag that's been at half-staff for two months.

Mejia went to the last couple of funerals, but she isn’t so sure about this one. They get wearisome, and the LAPD still has to say goodbye at one more.